Didn't read the whole thing but I saw something on it last night. This was a response to an officer arresting someone for disorderly conduct because they had a holstered gun while on their own property (outside). The DA then tried to prosecute.

It's always been legal to carry a gun as long as it isn't concealed (except in certain areas). You must also unload it and put it in a case to transport it in a vehicle. Even that is pretty strict by many states standards. In many places you simply can't have a shell in the chamber while it's in a car.

I heard an interesting quote a while ago regarding concealed carry: "It's better to be judged by 12 than to be carried by 6." Even though I could supply a lengthy list of people I would never want to see carrying a gun, I can't say that I don't believe it's their right. You know, the whole "all enemies, foreign and domestic" thing. Maybe it's taken out of context, but there is something to be said for the idividual right to defend themselves and thier family against evil acts.

"There are two parties in politics: Republicans and Democrats. Republicans have bad ideas, Democrats have no ideas." - Lewis Black

I agree with the general thought, but what are we supposed to do, outlaw stupid people? Or do we go the Canada route, where handguns are illegal but stabbings and bomb threats are considered routine?

I'm not encouraging anyone to carry any kind of weapon and to be honest, I'd definitely be on high alert if I saw someone on a street carrying a gun (I left a party in Eau Claire because someone was waving something around and I couldn't tell if it was real or a toy). However, if Wisconsin added a conceal and carry it would do a couple of things (one of which benefits me).

1st. If it requires better background checks and ideally a few safety course and maybe an evaluation, great! Then maybe we have a few sane people carrying guns to help stop the insane ones that are going to do it whether it's legal or not. Look at it on a bigger scale, how much worse would it be that N. Korea has nukes if we didn't have them as a deterrent? A hopefully rational offset to an insane mind that reduces the likelihood the weapon is ever used.

2nd. The benefit for me is that most states recognize another states conceal and carry permits. While I have no desire to carry a gun in daily use we do carry them occasionally on our property here and much more often at our cabin in Montana. Our 80 acres here seems to have about as many bears as squirrels and we've had a couple run-ins with them (I turned a corner on a trail and was 10 ft away and Dad was cutting trees and somehow wound up very close to cubs). Even more important, in Montana they have bears that are hanging around the cabins and the two things that truly scare me are mountain lions that have been seen on a number of occasions and the possibility of a grizzly.

In Montana especially, we carry an unconcealed handgun but how unconcealed does it need to be? If I unzip my jacket and it falls over the handle is it now concealed? How about if I have it in my backpack?

The right solution has never been to penalize all of us ******** because of a few *********.

Albert Einstein on stupidity:"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe."

Outlawing guns ownership this late in the game would merely mean a huge increase of gun violence and most other forms of violence. Can you imagine all those gang-bangers and other criminals in this country if they were the only ones that had guns? And you can bet they would have them. And what about all the druggies breaking into homes. All of sudden they would not have to worry about meeting head on with 44 magnum. They would have a field day.

I read some time back that there was more guns in private ownership in America then in all of the armies of the world combined. Same paper went on and said that it is the number one deterrent to being invaded because any would be attacker sees the potential citizen army in the U.S. at about 75% of the adult population.

I don't know what the new stats are but back a few years ago, 58% of the gun deaths in this country were suicides. I doubt many of those would have been prevented for lack of a gun. Lot of other ways to kill one’s self if they are determined. Not only that, as horrible as this may sound, some suicides are not all as tragic as they seem to be on the surface.

As Bill Engvall would say, they need to wear signs saying "I'm stupid". Once it was determined you could just hand it to them and say

"here's you sign".

The National Institutes of Health has just released the results of a $200 million research study completed under a grant to Johns Hopkins.The new study has found that women who carry a little extra weight live longer than the men who mention it.